PREVALENCE OF DYSLIPIDEMIA AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH DISEASE ACTIVITY IN PATIENTS WITH RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS IN SULAIMANI GOVERNORATE

Rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic inflammatory disease characterized by  chronic and erosive polyarthritis it is  the most common inflammatory arthritis, affecting from 0.5-1% of the general population. Dyslipidemia is a quite important problem in Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patient, which causes morbidity and mortality. As known, dyslipidemia is one of atherosclerosis risk-factor, and main mortality cause of longstanding RA patient. Objectives are to measure Prevalence of dyslipidemia in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis compared with healthy control peoples and to find out correlations between dyslipidemia and disease activity in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis. A total of one hundred patients with RA (80 female and 20 male) were included in the study, they were attending consultation  clinic and division of Rheumatology in the General Medical Teaching Hospital in Slemani city from (October 2015 to September 2016)  who fulfilling the 2010 American College of  Rheumatology/European league against Rheumatism classification criteria for RA and one hundred healthy  age and  sex-matched controls. Fasting lipid profiles of cases and control were estimated after an overnight fast of 12 hours. Association between lipid profile and disease activity using disease activity score DAS 28, inflammatory markers (CRP and ESR) was also determined.  RA patients showed a higher prevalence of associated dyslipidemia (48%) in comparison to control (4%) p- value less than 0.001.Our result showed a significant reduction in serum high density lipoproteins (HDL) p-value less than 0.001, with significant elevation of serum total cholesterol, triglyceride, low density lipoprotein and very low density lipoprotein p-value 0.001, 0.007, 0.01and 0.5  respectively in comparison to controls. There is a significant association between dyslipidemia and high DAS 28 score (p=0.02). There is  a significant association between high ESR of RA patients and dyslipidemia (p=0.001). A significant association was observed between high CRP level and RA patients with no dyslipidemia (p<0.001). Dyslipidemia are frequent among the patients with rheumatoid arthritis and highly associated with active RA. Serum HDL significantly reduced while other parameters of lipid profiles significantly increased in comparisons to control. Google Scholar